The Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department (AHTD) has scheduled repaving for roadways in Pope and Yell counties, according to a statement released by the department Wednesday.

The department opened bids to resurface approximately three miles of State Highway 7 near Dover. Work will begin at the intersection of State Highways 7 and 27 and continue southward.

“The surface that’s out there now has probably lived its course,” said David Nilles, public information specialist for the AHTD. “It’s not in bad condition but it is at a point where a new road surface is necessary.”

A second project is scheduled to resurface five miles of State Highway 28, which will begin at Ola and extend westward toward Plainview. Though there have been past discussions of adding a turning lane on Highway 28 in front of the recently-opened Two Rivers High School, the scheduled project will only resurface the roadway, Nilles said.

Two Rivers superintendent Ron Looper said he doesn’t expect the construction to have a large effect on the school’s operations or traffic.

“If they’re just resurfacing, they’ll be in front of the school probably less than two days,” Looper said. “I’m sure they’ll give us warning before, and of course, they have safety factors that they factor in, so we’ll certainly work with them on all of those, so I don’t think it’ll be a big problem. It’ll certainly be a big improvement.”

Nilles said he wasn’t sure what impact construction would have on traffic flow in and out of the school, but was confident the construction crews would take necessary measures to prevent as many issues as possible.

“I would think that the construction equipment would be on location probably by the end of April, so we would be on location before school gets out,” he said. “But we would do everything possible to eliminate any congestion or keep the flow of traffic as normal as possible, but there may be some periods where there could be some possible delays.”

Contracts for both projects were awarded to Blackstone Construction, LLC of Russellville.

Work is expected to begin within the next two to four weeks, according to the release. Completion on both is expected by late summer.